Postdoctoral researcher Mahesh Nepal awarded ASCPT 2022 Presidential Trainee Award
Mahesh Nepal, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar in The Ohio State University College of Pharmacy Division of Pharmacology and Pharmaceutics was selected to receive the 2022 Presidential Trainee Award from the American Society of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (ASCPT) for his abstract titled, “Prevention of oxaliplatin neuropathy by duloxetine-mediated OCT2 inhibition.”
The study evaluated the neuroprotective characteristics of duloxetine, an antidepressant, in mice with oxaliplatin-induced neuropathy. In this study, the membrane transporter known as organic cation transporter 2 (OCT2) located in the dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons was found to be greatly inhibited by duloxetine, thereby preventing the devastating toxicity of oxaliplatin.
The Presidential Trainee Award is an honor given to clinical pharmacologists and translational scientists in training who submitted top-scoring abstracts. This year, Dr. Nepal is among the few recipients of this award and will be recognized and present his work at the ASCPT Annual Meeting in March 2022.
“I am highly honored and very grateful to the selection committee of ASCPT,” Dr. Nepal said.
Dr. Nepal completed his master’s and PhD from Yeungam University in South Korea. Throughout his studies, he has been involved in investigating the biomolecular mechanisms of pathological conditions, such as cancer and inflammation, to discover better therapeutics.
Dr. Nepal has been involved in various in vitro, ex vivo and in vivo studies, acquiring practical hands-on skills in the field of cellular molecular biology, which led him to pursue clinical toxicology.
He joined the lab of Shuiying Hu, PhD, assistant professor of outcomes and translational sciences, and Alex Sparreboom, PhD, professor of pharmaceutics and pharmacology, after graduating Yeungam University to investigate chemotherapeutic-induced toxicities.
“I am very thankful to Drs. Hu and Sparreboom for their continuous guidance and support during my research,” Dr. Nepal said.
Dr. Nepal’s long-term career goal is to translate his research to produce outcomes that benefit human health.
“Exploring the biology of human cancer is one of the most interesting areas to investigate in the world of medical research,” he said. “Therefore, I hope this award will provide a further boost to help me make more contributions in the upcoming years.”